Favorite APOD

[stiffneck]

I think mine has to be http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111024.html - the Waterfall Nebula. There's so much going on here! Start at the "top" of the enigmatic namesake- there's even a faint arch of dust that resembles the mouth of a cave from which the river flows. Then, as it cascades off the side of the cliff, funneled by the peaks and valleys of the cliff, you can see what appears to be its shadow cast onto the dust wall behind it by a neighboring star. You follow the fall down to its "base" and to the brilliant (and almost unobscured) birth of a star, with its plasma jet and shock wave blasting toward the bottom of the frame. You follow the jet up toward its source, encountering a small bright spot that could be the star, but there are also what looks like two smaller waves coming out at 90° to the first, their trailing ends almost touching to form a disk. Maybe the bright spot is just the second burst interacting with the first? You can envision what it looks like behind that teasingly small cloud of dust as your eyes continue upward along the path of the bottom jet to dimmer wave signifying the end of its cosmic counterpart. Then, to top it off, you catch the couple dots above the upper wave that kind of lead you to a translucent egg drifting through space.

[starbrush]

My enduring favourite is Home from Above, at https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101115.html - a print goes everywhere with me in the back of my sketchbook. It has something of 19thC Romantic landscape (+ portraiture) about it. A fabulous view. Other more detailed photos of the interior of the Cupola show what seem to be a phenomenally complicated array of fitments and gadgets. I thought the quad-glazed windows were quite something, but the other stuff must need an entire familiarisation course!

[tauparsec]

I'll have to concede with starbrush. That's one of my favorites too.

Right now APOD archive is not viewable for me anymore. The browser doesn't process the full list and there are visual gaps between large blocks of links, and after a while it just says the page is unresponsive in Chrome... but I will say that this one blew my mind recently: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/spira ... 06851.html

For APOD itself there is a few. Close up of NGC 2841 is amazing. NGC 4921 is very eerie to me, another great one for me. The backside of Saturn is of course beautiful. Tadpole galaxy remains in my top 10 and of course the ultra deep field.

[Arcturus]

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150107.html

For me this is one of the most gorgeous picture ever.

[bdx]

Kind of new here but have been looking at APOD every day for over 20 years, my favorite was the Deep Field that was followed by the Ultra Deep Field.

[sp0ck]

If I have to narrow it down as much as possible, it will be two. For me, the choice is really not based on the image or the subject matter.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031007.html was the day my daughter was born, and

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060321.html, the day my son was born.

Of course, I can draw connections between the images and subject matter to their personalities with a small amount of creative corollary.

Ever since I came across APOD in the mid 90s (when the internet came to work), I have had APOD as my home page. My children, as they grew up, would always rush over to the home PC whenever it was turned on so they could see the "Astronomy Picture" and learn something about the great universe around us.

I will never tire of the images, explanations, wonder, and humor.

Thank you.

[rizarefaldi]

photos are great

[Farty7]

My favorite is probably the one that scares me the most.
I wish I could find the link, but the description text in the archive doesn't seem to have anything returning in my searches ...

This was the object; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_J1748%E2%88%922446ad
A pulsar spinning at 716hz (Fastest known still I think?), where the matter at the surface is moving at 1/4 the speed of light!
Both amazing, and disturbing, considering the object is so dense that its gravity surpasses the absurd centrifugal force on the surface matter.

*Edit* Made this just for fun. The entire animation in this video is just 1 second of rotation for this pulsar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHLpjAP78E4

If anybody knows the APOD link please let me know! 99.9% sure it was an artist representation for the image, but a good one.
And greetings btw! (First post here)

[Makiko]

I've just joined this forum.
I like Deep Sky Objects and Galaxies.

APOD of February 2022 , My best is this one

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220219.html